By Joanne Hunt
Agnes Martin Room, Harwood Museum, Taos, New Mexico, August 2007, photo © 2007 by Kevin Moul. All rights reserved.
Dear Agnes,
I’m back in Taos. It’s February and as I slow-walked from Mabel Dodge this afternoon, I scuffed through snow still lying on the ground. I’ve paid my seven dollars to gain entry to the Harwood Museum but all I will visit today is you. I feel at home in this octagonal room. The four yellow wood benches clustered under the skylight in the center; simple in their symmetry. The horizontal golden hardwood planks that run across the floor soothe and ground your work. I am, as ever, stunned by the seven linen canvases that surround me.
I am sitting in my usual place on the floor leaned against the white wall next to the absent eighth wall that forms the canopied entrance. I am wearing my faded black cotton pants and shirt. I don’t think you’ve seen me in anything but black. Few people have. I have been doing sitting practice in the zendo at Mabel’s for many hours today. I feel still and wide and ready for you.
As I look out at your paintings, these incredible 5’ X 5’ canvasses of pale blue and white, I am both deeply content and anguished. I won’t be back to visit for awhile – probably not until December. It is a difficult good bye because I have been coming here every three months for a year. I’ve gotten used to these trips to the Harwood. Like a trip to a favourite church or synagogue where you can sit forever in some form of prayer or communion. Silent. Unmoving. This room is as familiar to me as the zendo in my own home. This is my sixth visit and I am still awed to sit here.
It has been three years since that first November afternoon when I walked into this room, felt my lungs contract and my body hit the floor as my knees buckled. Gasping and wide eyed I looked around the room, overcome with emotion. I crawled over to this spot against the wall and carefully gazed out while steadying my shaking body. I have never had a painter’s work strike me so deeply. Each time I come here to sit and write, I can feel myself preparing to walk again into this room. Each time you hold a mirror up to me. Like an aunt who sees her niece once a year and registers how much she’s grown in a way that parents can’t. I see myself and where my writing is during each visit here. With each trip to Taos, this room is my Writer’s barometer.
I don’t want to leave Taos. I don’t want to head home. I have let my life get fuzzy. Cluttered up. Too much. Too full. When I get back to Ottawa, I am going to clear out some of the piles to make room. I am not sure what I am making room for but I will do it anyway. I want to live cleanly like you. Clear. Crisp. No distractions. I want to live directly. Single-pointed. Nothing extra.
Agnes, is there anything you want to tell me?
Ordinary Happiness, crop of Agnes Martin painting, Ordinary Happiness, Harwood Museum, Taos, New Mexico, July 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Yes, Joanne
You can do it.
Don’t be so hard on yourself and be ruthless too. I threw out all my early paintings and I never regretted it. I hadn’t found my form. I needed to clear everything out. Some art is going to have to die in your book in order to bring clarity. Don’t be afraid to get rid of stuff.
Don’t be afraid to move to smaller canvases.
Don’t make excuses.
Don’t explain.
Don’t justify.
Do what you need to do.
Not everyone will love your art. Some people don’t like mine. They just see stripes. Oh, and by the way, they are just stripes. Don’t make them such a big deal.
They’re No Big Deal and they’re a Very Big Deal.
Both.
Just like how you wrote the two sides of your aspiration on the altar in the zendo this week. On one side of your folded piece of paper: No Big Deal. On the other side: Very Big Deal. You got it right. It is always both.
Joanne, blue is a happy colour. Now I know that makes you want to cry because you’re not very good at being happy yet. You’ll get better. All these things you already have:
Lovely Life
Love
Friendship
Perfect Day
Ordinary Happiness
Innocence
Playing
These are not just the names of the seven paintings. These things are present in your life. Right now. Blue is an ordinary, happy colour.
Ordinary Happiness is the kind of happiness I’m talking to you about. The wild kind of happiness comes and goes. It rolls in and out like a storm. Ordinary Happiness has staying power.
You have kept coming to visit me all these years in your travels to Taos; you have sat and written in this room of rounded edges and light in the middle. You can go now. I’m inside you. You don’t have to wonder about when you’ll be back to visit. You can visit anytime. Even in the middle of teaching. I am not separate from you.
Joanne, I want to speak directly to your search for something bigger. You have been troubled about what you call your “lack of faith.” I know that you want to rest in something bigger than you, trust something bigger than you and be held by something bigger than you. I think that’s good. It is good to be open and available to wider sources. But know this: You’re the one who has to get up and go to your desk each day. Trusting in something bigger than you does not bring you to your writing. You do. That bigger thing might meet you once you’re sitting there but it is does not provide the motivation or the propulsion. It meets you. You need to be ready. Like when you’re settled into the belly of your writing and Big Mind is flowing out of you so clearly, effortlessly, not seeking anything while your hand moves across the page for hours. You can trust that.
Did you hear me?
You can trust that.
Is that outside of you?
Or inside of you?
Is that that bigger than you?
Or just you?
It doesn’t matter. That’s not your concern. What matters is that you write. What matters is that you show up and wait to see what shows up to meet you.
I once sat still every day for three months waiting for an inspiration to arrive. Three months. Every day I waited. Still. Silent. I didn’t know if it would come or not. I didn’t have faith that it would come or not. It was my job to sit and wait. It came and I painted again. But I might not have. And that’s not the point – whether I ended up painting again or not – the point is that I knew what my job was. So: I did it.
It doesn’t have to do with faith, Joanne. It has to do with knowing that you’re a Writer. That’s your job. To show up and write. You get inspired. You use words to express it. I got an inspiration. I painted. You write, as truly as possible, to capture that inspiration. I painted to do the same.
Not in a tight way. But in a true way.
There’s math involved. And calculations. And measurements. And elegance. And simplicity. In the form and in the math. It isn’t all soft and mushy. There’s discipline and rigour and study and figuring it out but it is held in a soft hand. Clear. Steady.
I led a disciplined life, some say, like a Zen monk. I don’t know about all of that. I didn’t need much. None of us do. My paintings sold for more than a half a million dollars each. You are surrounded by $3.5 million dollars worth of art. Isn’t that something? How can Lovely Life be worth that much? Yet, should it be worth $20 million or $150 million or $50 bucks for the canvas?
That was not my job so I don’t know anything about those things. I tried to capture inspiration. Life is filled with beauty. Can you see it? Can you touch the beauty in your own life?
You are living too full up right now. Don’t despair. You can change it. One step. Then another. Sometimes I had too much too. It’s okay. Just start changing it each day. It won’t take long.
Pull out Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind to remember why you chose this path.
I never stopped painting because I never stopped receiving inspiration. You will never stop writing and listening to music. You and music do have a special bond. It serves you well. And you hear well. Keep listening.
Spend more time in silence.
Walk more. While you can.
And don’t worry so much. It will all go fine because “fine” includes everything – all the stuff we call good or bad. It’s just stuff. It is being human. That’s all. You get to be a human so you get to have the stuff that human beings call good or bad. Don’t worry. You’ll get all the stuff that humans are supposed to get. That’s our true nature.
Let it come. Receive it. And let it pass. Don’t cling to it. The happiness or the sadness. Just notice the inspiration. Both inspire. That’s all.
There is just the living of a life and knowing that is what you are doing. A living of a life. So pay attention.
Top of mountain.
Middle of mountain.
Bottom of mountain.
Doesn’t matter. No need to decide.
The mountain will find you.
Take good care of yourself,
Agnes Martin
About Agnes Martin, Joanne says: She was Canadian born in Maklin, Saskatchewan on March 22, 1912 and died in December 2004 at the age of 92 in Taos, New Mexico. She lived most of her last decades in Taos painting (or waiting for inspiration) until the end; she was dedicated to capturing the beauty in life.
Agnes said, ‘My paintings are about quiet happiness like the lightness of the morning…I look in my mind and I see composition.’ It is her simple clarity that left such an impression on me. I think that you have to have a really clean relationship with The Mind to paint the way she did. I want to write that way.
About this piece, Joanne says: I was compelled to write a good-bye letter to Agnes that day in the Harwood at the end of a year long Writing Intensive. I asked her if she had anything to tell me. I thought that the response would be to sit in silence for awhile. I was surprised when I immediately drew a line on the page and my pen kept moving as the letter from Agnes emerged. It was calm and clear. I guess there were a few things she wanted me to know. I got out of the way and wrote until she was done. It came and went so easily. I slow-walked back to the zendo at Mabel’s that afternoon and read it aloud during our Reading Group. I was quite shocked. I still am.
About Joanne: Joanne just returned from an August trip to Taos where she got to surprise Agnes with another visit. Kevin Moul stumbled upon Joanne sitting in her usual place on the floor writing and took the photos of her there.
Besides sitting for hours on the floor of an art gallery channelling Agnes, Joanne is the founder of an Integral Coaching® Training School in Ottawa, Canada with her partner and beloved wife, Laura. You can read some of her Perspectives and Articles in the Resources section of their web site at Integral Coaching Canada. She is ruthlessly working on her first book while trying to write more in coffee shops rather than pubs where her libation of choice is a Guinness. She is Irish after all.
-posted on red Ravine, Monday, August 27th, 2007
Dear Joanne,
This is simply inspiring. Thank you for sharing this story and planting the seed of possibilities in me/in us, possibilities which I know are in all of us.
Bravo Joanne. The picture I felt while reading was that your mind became and is the canvas on which Agnes continues to paint. And you the artist has picked up her paint brush strokes.
You inspire from your place of inspiration. Merci.
M
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I remember when you read this piece in the zendo. I got goosebumps listening. I sat with you five times, once not part of the intensive, but our first silent retreat. Every time you read, something happened. I cried often when you read. This time, your letter to Agnes and her letter back, you started reading, your voice strong, almost reverberating in that still zendo. With each line, it seemed, I could feel something building. And then the voice of Agnes coming through you, coming through your heart, your arm, your pen. That’s when the goosebumps came.
I told you in email that this piece is transformative. I sat with you for five weeks spread out over two years. Watching you and being with you was like watching nature change with each season. This piece is powerful, yet for me it’s even more powerful because of having seen the transformation.
My questions to you: How is life now? How does it continue to change for you? Have you taken Agnes’ advice?
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Mariette –
How wonderful to hear from you! One writer sending a note to another. I loved what you said about Agnes having my mind as a canvas now. That has touched me deeply. Thank you for creating a bridge that I had not seen. And I hope you are well in your beautiful travels! Much love to you…
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ybonesy-
Yes, we have travelled side by side through many retreats, haven’t we?! Thank you for your kind words. And a deep bow to you too for your transformational journey as a writer, artist and online publisher! This web site alone is a testament to your practice. I say “Bravo” to you!
Have I taken Agnes’ advice?
I think so. And, at the same time, I think it is wisdom that will take a lifetime to be with. I think that the “mother of all practices” is not writing, per se, it is the practice of returning to writing each day. Noticing when life has started to creep up to filled beyond capacity and bringing forward the “returning to” again and again.
Maybe the fullness of work and creating time to write (and wander and goof off) will ever be the struggle and maybe it is a necessary tension. I don’t know. I am better at just “showing up and seeing what shows up to meet me” as Agnes spoke about.
I think that it the biggest change in my life. I have more equanimity around this tension. I’m calmer and can touch more internal quiet where, as you know, there used to be the raging roller coaster ride! Not that the ride wasn’t fun! This one that I am on now, though, has more staying power. Like Ordinary Happiness…
How about you?
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Joanne-
My mind is filled with the simplicity of blue as I write this. I too am feeling full and needing to return to simplicity. I too am saying goodbye.
I am so touched by your piece, the tears stream down my face as I reach out to you, fellow writer, researcher, coach. How lovely that the ones who inspire us, teach us, and love us are always only a opening away. How lovely that the art of their very lives dwells deeply within us and the art of our lives dwells within them (whether we’ve known them personally or not) because connection knows no limitations.
And this is your life-right now-in this moment. This is Joanne, in all of her feelings of fullness, overwhelm and periods of calm. It is all your life. Relish it.
In deep love and respect,
Lisa
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Joanne, I sat right beside you in the corner, only inches away, when you read this for the first time in the zendo this year. I was completely blown away. Your voice was quivering but steady and you just kept reading until the end.
I cried when you read it, too, I was so moved and inspired by what had happened with Agnes at the Harwood that day. And I knew it had happened, that she had spoken through you. Because that’s what happens when we go sit in silence and write. We open to everything. And we are listening.
I’ve sat with you five times, too, one other time than the Intensive last year, and have always been drawn to your steadiness and honesty. I remember another piece you read about your father that completely stilled the room.
Thank you for sharing this with us on red Ravine. It’s a pleasure. (And the photograph that Kevin took at the top of this piece is beautiful. I met him and was introduced to his photography at a retreat last December, 2006. Very inspiring.)
When I was in Taos again this July, we went to the Harwood Museum (LINK to Agnes Martin Gallery)) to see Diebenkorn. I was compelled to peek around the corner at Agnes and I remembered what you read. Very powerful.
Finally, I love these lines. Thank you, Agnes.
Let it come. Receive it. And let it pass. Don’t cling to it. The happiness or the sadness. Just notice the inspiration. Both inspire. That’s all.
There is just the living of a life and knowing that is what you are doing. A living of a life. So pay attention.
Top of mountain.
Middle of mountain.
Bottom of mountain.
Doesn’t matter. No need to decide.
The mountain will find you.
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Hello Lisa,
Ah, I can see almost picture your face as you were reading this. Tears flowing as you sit in the midst of your own writing mountain this week and your own poignant good-bye.
I am so grateful that these words from someone who feels like my grandmother found their way to you as you whisper good-bye to your grandmother and giggle at remembered stories. Both. Always both.
Love to you,
Joanne
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I love this from one of your comments, Joanne:
the “mother of all practices” is not writing, per se, it is the practice of returning to writing each day. Noticing when life has started to creep up to filled beyond capacity and bringing forward the “returning to” again and again
I picture a resetting, like a resetting of a clock or a moment. Like sitting practice, and the resetting of the mind, the clearing of whatever it was I was going to, coming back to just sitting. the coming back. That resonates with me. I don’t know that I can answer What about me? except to say everything has changed and continues to change. How much of that is the intensive, I’m not exactly sure, but I think maybe a lot.
Hey, I didn’t catch until my third reading that blue is a happy color. It is, isn’t it?
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Hey QM –
Ya, we held down our corner of the zendo, didn’t we!
You know, what was funny about Agnes’ closing lines was that, I don’t know if I told you, I had had a dream the week before about visiting Natalie and Agnes. I lived in a town at the bottom of the mountain. Natalie lived half way up the mountain and visited town often. Agnes lived at the top of the mountain and it was really hard to get to her place. The roads were trecherous and there were washouts everywhere. It was dangerous territory. Natalie’s was tough too but getting to the top was a whole other level of risk. Interesting….
In my dream I was wrestling painfully with where to live. I wanted desperately to “get out of town” and was drawn up the mountain. Part of me was attracted to living half way up so that I still had some contact with the world (like Natalie) and a very deep part of me wanted to be where Agnes lived. It was a rich dream, filled with images and scenes too detailed to go into here. But it was a pivotal dream for me.
Then Agnes closed her letter to me with:
Top of mountain.
Middle of mountain.
Bottom of mountain.
Doesn’t matter. No need to decide.
The mountain will find you.
I sat there and cried. Peace at last.
Thanks for all the great work you do on this web site, QM. It is such an inspiration.
Much love,
Joanne
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ybonesy –
I’ve only started to experience it has a happy colour versus a soothing one for when I feel sad. Blue has been a healing colour for me so I haven’t always associated it with good times.
But I must say that when I quietly sit with soft, muted blue…it does bring a quiet happiness.
Big hug to you down there from up here!
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Hi Joanne – I wanted to respond to you here on Red Ravine, as well as the email I sent to you personally.
I love what you said about showing up (to write, day after day) being the mother of all practices. Amen to that. And amen again. As you know, I’m working with your coach friend, Anne, and through that work, I am having to take a good look at all the ways I don’t show for my writing. I remember what you said, YBonesy, about finishing work projects, not letting others down, but letting yourself down too often- and I’m like that, too. I go to great lengths not to let others down. I even do all the homework that Anne gives me. But I let my writer self down almost without a thought.
I am learning patience with the part of me that chooses to go to the grocery store rather than revise another chapter of my book.
And it helps to be reminded that this practice, this showing up to write every day, is not a goal to reach, but instead a process to embrace.
Jude
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Hey Jude –
Thanks for both of your notes. I really relate to what you said about repeatedly letting the writer down. I am glad that you are developing more patience (I am too)… around the part of me that chooses flossing rather than face the writing desk. Now that is sad! Even grocery shopping lets me buy chocolate – Joanne the Writer is a chocolate hound, as you know.
And we help each other out. All of us. Reading your note helps me out. It is good to have a community. People who know you as a writer. People who read your work, listen to your work, cry with your latest piece, laugh at loud at the exact right moment. Writing buddies who arrive at Paddy Boland’s, sit down and already know to order, “Three Guinness and a Margarita,” before the rest of the clan arrives.
There is beauty in that.
You have that.
And I do too.
Much love to you, my dear Jude!
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Here’s to three guinnesses and a margarita! And to all my writing clan. You keep me going.
Thanks, Joanne.
Jude
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Hi Joanne,
Simple yet profound words of wisdom and the reminder to act mindfully without expecting or waiting for profound inspiration to move us.
“The mountain will find you.”
I am also touched by your perseverance in writing so that your great talents help you and all the people you connect with.
Thanks for sharing this!
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Hi Paul,
How lovely to hear from you and thank you for taking the time to post on the red Ravine site! It is a site where much inspiration can be found. I know that it has provided that for me.
And I am looking forward to seeing you again in a couple of weeks! Another year ahead of being inspired by the coaches we will get to connect with… A new journey. Or maybe, anew journey.
Warm hug around you,
Joanne
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Joanne,
French Poet Nicolas Boileau wrote one day : “Hasten slowly, and without losing heart, put your work twenty times upon the anvil.” Similarly Agnes Martin was not afraid to throw away works that did not satisfy her… until she found her way.
Your writing is inspiring for all those who are seeking their mission in life. The answer does not come easily, but it will come. “Spend more time in silence… Let it come. Receive it. And let it pass. Don’t cling to it. … Just notice the inspiration.”
Thank you.
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Ah Jean…
You are a poet too, my dear man! A poet too.
And you are welcome. It is good to hear your voice echoing in your words you have typed. I haven’t heard your voice in, what seems to be, a long while.
I will continue to put my work twenty times upon the anvil. May you do the same…
With my love to you,
Joanne
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Dear Joanne — Today, in a cherished quiet moment, I headed to red Ravine, especially to spend time with you. I started at the top, reading your letter, then Agnes’ response, followed by all the replies…and it was almost too much all at once. Some part of me was afraid to look at all this truth head-on.
There is great wisdom in both your post and in your thoughtful replies. Thank you especially for sharing your dream. It taught me something about my own life. This past year, I have wanted to flee the present moment and catapault myself to the other side of this war…or at least to the place where my son, Peter, is home from it.
In your words, I’ve recognized that wherever I move on the mountain, the war will still be there…and so will the peace. So much is in perspective…and color, as Agnes knew.
Wyoming knows the color blue and provides it abundantly in her generous skyscapes. Today, I will rest, gazing at the wide blue sky and enjoy the ordinary happiness it offers.
Please, accept my deepest thanks, along with a surprise hug from behind, at any street corner.
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Dear breathepeace –
I can only begin to imagine the difficulty that you have known and continue to know while your beloved Peter is in the middle of war. And I also know that the deep pain of his absence is met in equal measure by the deep peace practices that you engage in every day, with each breath. It is its own mountain practice: war and peace.
Perhaps you should write a book named (familiarly) War and Peace – a whole different feminine, spiritual, conscious, mindful, and stunningly poignant maternal take on a topic that has not had this perspective brought to it before. I would buy it. It would be filled with wisdom about the arising of war and peace in our lives as we attend to our own little daily conflicts and offers of olive branches and what happens in the mirror of the larger globe we live on. I know – the last thing a writer needs is someone else suggesting a book for them to write! I’m breaking a writing cardinal rule, I’m sure. Still, I feel a depth of space and wisdom in your words so I happily lob this muffin over to you…
I am glad, deep in my heart, that the Agnes piece brought another perspective into your world – contributing to you has brought me a moment of joy in my world. In a quiet Ordinary Happiness sort of way.
I will imagine the wide Wyoming sky today and know somehow from afar, it is holding me too.
My back is warm. I can feel you there!
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Joanne: I learn so much from you. thanks once again.
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[…] A Letter To Agnes Martin And A Surprise Reply by Joanne Hunt […]
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Bonjour, I am very happy find the letters here….I am canadian artist who love Agnes Martin and all writings from her and around her. Thank you so much be on net with your great heart. I want ask you if you know where I can find with a good prices Writings from Agnes Martin I dont find here and what I see on net is around 300.$ canadian…terrible. My Museum and librairy here in Québec dont have…then I find pieces by pieces the words from Agnes ….Help me if possible…thank you so much….Denise Pelletier
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Denise, welcome to red Ravine. How wonderful to hear from other artists. Thank you for your comment. I’ll have to do a little research on your question. Or perhaps I can email Joanne and see if she has any concrete ideas about where to find writings from Agnes Martin. She knows so much more about her life and work than I. And she may have more insights into your situation being a Canadian herself. I’ll keep you posted if I find anything out.
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[…] A Letter To Agnes Martin And A Surprise Reply – the story of a writer who meets a great artist at the Harwood Museum during one of the Taos Writing Retreats and the conversation that ensues between them […]
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[…] I had some moving responses to my recent blogs, some in comments, some as private messages and also some suggestions to further reading. Altogether I was prompted to think about (amongst a million other things!), the miracle of life and ‘ordinary happiness‘. […]
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[…] Go see red ravine blog…well done…a letter to Agnes . […]
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Agnes Bernice Martin Was A Great Artist And Painter Of Her Time And Her Cre
ative Work Is Really Pretty And Wonderful And Nice And Many People Loved It And Adored Her Because She Was A Good Female Painter And I Am Happy F
or Her Because Today Is Her Birthday And Wishing Her Many Blessings And W
ishes And It’s Time To Say Final Goodbye To Agnes Because She Passed On
And She Is Now Deceased And Will Always Remember Her! RIP.
PS In Loving Memory And Remembrance Of Agnes Bernice Martin.
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